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Monday, July 1, 2013

Quilled Pennsylvania German Design

A friend asked if I would quill a birthday present for her husband - I'd be delighted! He's a paper conservator by profession and has
restored antique quillwork... how nice (and atypical) to quill for
someone who is already so familiar with the technique. She requested a design
that could be displayed with his collection of Pennsylvania German
art pieces and sent this photo to serve as inspiration.

Before deciding what to quill, I set off googling Pennsylvania German and Pennsylvania Dutch (the names seem to be used interchangeably) folk art, and learned about
distelfinks, stylized goldfinches that are sometimes shown with
funny head feathers.

They can be found on early fraktur, documents
such as birth and baptismal records, that were lettered in a distinctive 'fractured' script
and date from the mid-1700s. (The Free Library of Philadelphia has a very nice fraktur collection.) Often colorful distelfinks were pictured on circular hex signs too, and are still painted on
red barns in southeastern Pennsylvania and beyond to this day.

I decided to do a loose interpretation of a piece that is in the Pennsylvania German collection of The Barnes Foundation
in Philadelphia, thinking that the bird would go well with the wooden
ones on the chest of drawers. All in all, it was an enjoyable weekend
spent quilling a traditional design... nice to step away from one's
usual style every now and then!

And now let's fast forward a few hundred years... I want to show you this PANCAKE Map that Justina Yang of Fiber Lab
sent as a thank you for blogging about her new line of wall art. What a great shape! Any guesses on the location?

It's Philadelphia, nearby and one of my favorite cities. Once the map is properly hung using the handy strings Justina placed on the back, it's sure to be a conversation starter... I can't wait to see the expressions of puzzled guests!

I like that you put so much thought into this project and researched the bird. That makes it such a special gift. I'm sure he will enjoy it. Your Philly map is great. Yeah, it will be fun to see people puzzling over it when they visit you!

Ann!! hi! lovely work, as usual. also, i love justina's work, she's a genius. and speaking of philly, i just bought my vienna teng tickets for her philly concert! i'm so excited!hope you are doing well =)

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